Their Own Lives
by Ashtree1165
Summary: How Stark Tower became more than just a tower, but a home. ONE-SHOT. NO SLASH. PEPPERONY. BLACKHAWK.


**Their Own Lives**

**There's pry grammar or spelling mistakes in this, but in my defence I wrote this at** **11:30 at night. **

* * *

It was weird if you asked Tony. Really weird. One moment they're all going about and doing their own things, living their own lives. And the next, their living one shared weird as shit life.

Given, they weren't exactly normal people. So weird wasn't that unexpected.

They all had their own homes elsewhere, well all except for Bruce, yet for some reason whenever Tony woke up in the morning, he had a kitchen full of superheroes. They'd be sat in various seats, talking amongst one another and eating some extravagant breakfast they'd made from the various foods in Tony's cabinets.

The sight never failed to amaze the mechanic.

He wasn't sure when it happened, but over the year following the Manhattan Invasion, Stark Tower had transformed into the unofficial home for the heroes. Despite the fact they all had someplace else they could go, they chose to spend the majority of their nights under Stark's roof.

Banner was the first. He'd moved in immediately after the attack. Tony had his few things flown in and in a matter of just a few hours Tony had set up an entire floor of the tower just for the scientist. Along with a lab all of his own.

Tony would save the sight of Bruce's face when he'd given it to him officially in the data banks of his mind forever.

Bruce spent night and day in the tower. Getting to know his gracious host, or should he say hosts, better. Pepper had taken an immediate liking to Bruce. He was a gentle soul and the kindest man she'd had the pleasure of meeting.

She knew he'd be a great influence on her boyfriend.

Though Tony had quit the influence on Bruce as well.

Bruce came out of his shell around Tony. He actually developed a genuine personality. The two could talk science for hours, as though they were grade schoolers and it were their own little language they'd invented for themselves.

Pepper had seldom seen Tony happier.

Though they could laugh and joke as well. Both entirely comfortable in each other's presence.

Bruce couldn't thank Tony enough. In fact, he never really stopped thanking him.

* * *

The next were Clint and Natasha. The duo were long tired of their lodgings at SHIELD and figured it couldn't hurt any. So why the fuck not? Clint was over enthusiastic to live with the billionaire, Natasha went mainly because Clint did. Though, no matter how much she'd deny it, she was rather fond of Stark herself.

He had a way of... well, growing on you.

Natasha was beginning to think the only reason Clint took Tony up on his offer was because of the ventilation system on the tower. The archer would disappear for hours, crawling around in the infinite maze.

She could quit literally search all day just to wind up finding him in Tony's living room. Plopped down on the sofa and shoved between Banner and Stark watching some ridiculous comedy. Laughing wholeheartedly along with them.

More often than not she'd join them.

They both had been pulled out from behind the protective barrier they'd built up around each other. And they found that they really didn't mind so much.

Natasha had never imagined the witty billionaire and closed off scientist would have such an influence over the two of them.

She never imagined she could trust someone so much. It was scary, but she was all too willing to take that risk. And she knew Clint was too.

* * *

After the assassin tag-team, came the Norse god himself. Who Tony would admit was a but trickier. He never officially moved in, but that was alright. Tony made sure he had his own space on the tower nonetheless. Top floor in fact. He had to install a lightning rod as well, but that hardly mattered.

Thor would arrive every so often, unannounced, sometimes with Dr. Foster. She fit in perfectly, hitting it off with Stark and Banner. The three spewed off scientific discussions like they were born to. Jane and Natasha got along rather spectacularly as well. Much to everyone's surprise.

While the God of Thunder spent most of his time on Asgard, he felt more than at home in Stark Tower. Declaring this team of heroes his close friends and second family.

Thor could be himself around these few without fear of rejection. There was no one to impress. No king that he had to live up to. And maybe, if he was lucky, he could even forget about his brother. The constant guilt and worry that he held for the God of Mischief always lingered in his mind.

Nearly every night spent with Thor under their roof, was spent in Tony's living room. TV off, and room nearly silent. The only sound to be heard would be that of Thor's as he told some elaborate tale of his people or his childhood. They simply couldn't get enough.

Especially Tony and Bruce. The science behind Asgardian magic was enthralling.

It brought a smile to the Asgardian's face. The acceptance these people had for him was something all it's own

* * *

Next came the good Captain himself. In Tony's eyes, he was more of a challenge than the rest. Even more so than Thor. A lasting bitterness lay between the mechanic and the super soldier. Tony didn't want to like the man who unknowingly drove a wedge between him and his father, yet found that he did none the less.

It was ironic really.

Yet, despite all odds, Tony had managed to drag the soldier from his crappy, rundown apartment in DC. Relocating him in his very own penthouse on the floor just below Tony's.

Just like Bruce and the assassin duo, Steve had a floor all to himself.

Steve was reluctant to move in of course. He didn't want to impose. It took a whole lot of coaxing to finally get him to pack up and just move in already.

And Steve didn't regret a thing.

No one could say when, or even how. But at some point in that long year following the invasion, Steve and Tony had become, well... friends.

It was an unlikely pairing, yet it was real nonetheless.

Pepper would wake up to an empty bed, only to enter her kitchen minutes later to see the perturbing sight of her boyfriend and the Captain chatting it up. It was a sight that never failed to bring a smile to her lips.

Steve slowly but surly opened up. Just as the others did when they entered Stark Tower, he blossomed like some flower in a cheesy metaphor. He'd sped his morning in the gym, afternoons in the common room and evenings gazing out the windows, as if seeing his incredibly view of the city for the first time. He'd draw in his shabby sketchbook with the various tools Stark had so kindly supplied him with for hours.

It took very little time for Tony to completely turn Steve's ideas of him upside down.

Steve found he actually liked the man. He resembled Howard in numerous ways, yet stood tall as his own man. The similarities were there, but the differences were stronger.

Steve couldn't be more grateful to Tony. The man Steve once wanted nothing more than to punch square in the jaw had somehow formed into his best friend.

And he found that he wouldn't prefer it any other way.

* * *

Last came Tony Stark.

He had a home in Malibu, a nice home in fact, but that hardly mattered. No matter how hard he tried, he found himself drawn to Stark Tower. There was a security that the tower held. Perhaps it was the two highly skilled assassins or even the super soldier just down the hall. Whatever it was, Tony liked it.

Craved it.

Ever since the others had moved in, Tony and Pepper spent more and more time in New York.

Just like his team, Tony opened up as well. On one evening, an intoxicated Tony had spewed his every last secret and fear to Banner. He told him everything. From his childhood, to Afghanistan and Obie, to Hammer and his fear of losing Pepper to that psycho.

Soon after that night, which Tony would confess, he hardly remembered, he'd told the team about the one thing keeping him alive.

The Arc Reactor.

He'd given them all detailed, careful instructions on how to replace it should something happen in battle and he was unable.

They all listened with rapt attention. Not wanting to let their teammate down should worse come to worse and the situation called for such a drastic action. And Tony knew they had all committed it to memory.

He was touched actually, to see that these people actually, genuinely, cared for his well being. It was something he'd never had and something he never wanted to give up.

Tony wouldn't trade this for anything.

* * *

None of them knew when it happened, but in the year following the Manhattan Invasion, their ragtag team had formed a bond. A bond that ran deeper than blood. A bond that they knew would not break.

A year ago they were a bunch of scattered, lost and wandering individuals. All fighting their own battles, all living their own lives.

Yet here they stood now, stronger then ever. They were a family, all living one jumbled life. All intrusting the rest with their deepest secrets, their strongest weaknesses, their most paralysing fears.

Knowing the other had their back till the end.

And not a one regretted a thing.


End file.
